Episode 45–Rapture

It was the late 1970s and Disco was finally making that transition out of the clubs, to be replaced by Hip-Hop or New Wave, depending on where you hung out. And the members of Blondie were at the forefront of the Hip-Hop movement, going to clubs and seeing performers freestyling in the streets.

When Fab Five Freddy suggested to Deborah Harry and Chris Klein that they should write a song about him, they thought it was a good idea and came up with a song that represented several “firsts” in the music industry:

First Rap record to reach #1 on the Billboard charts;

First Rap video on MTV;

First Rap video in MTV’s 90-song rotation.

Unfortunately for the band, it was also their last major chart success in the US, but it paved the way for a bunch of other artists to move forward with the genre.

Incidentally, I mentioned this during recording and it wound up being edited out, but the sax player on this record is none other than Tom Scott.

Around the same time this record came out, the Tom Tom Club was working on a rap track of their own, “Wordy Rappinghood”. However, neither group knew what the other was up to, because Blondie was working in New York City while the Tom Tom Club was in the Bahamas.

Your podcatcher should have this show downloaded, or ready to download, by now, but if you prefer to listen here or go the DIY route on the download, feel free to have at it using the player below.

And, of course, a positive rating wherever you get your podcasts warms my heart every time.

Liner Notes

Theme music is “Surfing Day” by Marcos H. Bolanos, from his album Unchained Melodies, Vol.2, available at this site, and licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. And I hope I did that correctly.

If you’re listening through podcast software, hosting is provided by these folks:

If you’re a podcaster and you use sound clips in your show, go over to Zhorn Software and download Soundboard. There’s no user manual so it’s not immediately friendly, but you’ll pick it up quickly. Another potential, probably more powerful source for you is Jingle Palette, which has some fun stuff pre-loaded.

Audio production gets a huge assist from Auphonic. Tell them I said Hi. They won’t know what you’re talking about, but that’s all right.

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